Gems on the pages of this collection of poems
Agnes Walsh’s writing is expressive, inspirational in latest book of poetry
Poetry is a distinct kind of observation, of taking note, which Walsh often urges us to, as in “Come Here, Listen.” Again and again, her word choices are fortuitous and spot on: “That bun of a bird there”; “The house is done up like a gift”; “a button of a woman”; “a pole of a man.”
The Wind Has Robbed the Legs Off a Madwoman: Poems
By Agnes Walsh Breakwater Books
$19.95, 80 pages
Agnes Walsh was raised in Placentia, a geographic lodestone that informs much of her writing, which is an extensive mix of prose, poem and playwriting.
Her poetry volumes include “In the Old Country of My Heart”, “Going Around With Bachelors”, and “Oderin,” and her stage work includes the autobiographical collaboration (with Mercedes Barry) “Time Before Thought,” and a theatrical adaptation of Iceland’s Nobel-prize winning author Halldór Laxness's novel, “The Atom Station.”
It’s not incidental that she would be so taken with such a work, and her words are often trans-atlantic; she recently appeared in Pam Morgan’s White Fleet Suite, a lyrical and multidimensional piece on the historic and emotional links between Newfoundland and Portugal, and which will soon tour there. Walsh was also St. John’s first poet laureate.
NEW POETRY COLLECTION
“The Wind Has Robbed the Legs Off a Madwoman” is her fourth poetry collection.
These 59 poems often take their titles from the first line, while other headings set or mark the piece; a couple are inspired by artworks by Paul Henry and Christopher Pratt: “As much as the painting is of a place, / the place itself is a painting.”
From time to time, other writers and poets are referenced, in quotes from such as Anne Carson or Oscar Wilde, or in a verbal aside to Emily Dickinson. There is a spicing of Gaelic words and phrases.
By theme, they pool into a series of expressive chambers, moving through the world, and highly seasonally attuned to what is growing and what is dormant, to what animals are asleep and which are hungry, to the weather, to the phases of the moon.
Some skim across more personal episodes, such as an unexpected and concerning medical diagnosis.
TAKING THINGS IN
Part of Walsh’s perspective and connection comes from the fact that she is taking things in as she travels on foot.
“You can walk through thickets of tuckamore, / and there, in the hush of dense evergreeen, / that lies so close to the earth, / there you can hear the sea./ But in here it is dulled. The gnarled trees have / gathered the sound: it has become a small ball / that you can round into your body.”
In her manner of address she is often talking to “you,” including asking direct questions.
Poetry is a distinct kind of observation, of taking note, which Walsh often urges us to, as in “Come Here, Listen.” Again and again, her word choices are fortuitous and spot on: “That bun of a bird there”; “The house is done up like a gift”; “a button of a woman”; “a pole of a man.”
She frequently presents us with people who did exist, but now dwell only in her memory. In “Things He’d Say,” she describes how “There was always a lean to him, as if / relaxing into the chair might seem impolite.” The dialogue here, and throughout, is also resonant and telling.
“When I served him cake on my bone china plate / he said, That plate has a shine on it / like a cat’s eye under the bed.
VIBRANT DEPICTIONS
Some pieces, like “Peonies,” just pop with vibrancy and depictions.
“Like juvenile ballerinas / reaching for that perfect arc”; “Blooming, they sing at you / their serenade more aubade / than nocturne”; “All sisters gather together / in ballroom gowns.”
Or in “Daffodils,” where “Their leaning makes me nervous / they’re like a drunk who almost falls / and a bunch looks like it could / gang up on you. In legion. / Or they can look like a choir / as it sings through the corona, / trumpeting that ‘He Has Risen’.”
Any page would yield such gems. Walsh has her ears and eyes open, and her mind: “I don’t mind not knowing what is what. / I was reared on fairy tales, tales of fairies, / tales of strange occurrences. / There’s a great comfort there.” (“Sounds At Night”: “Things do go bump in the night … A letting go, the hollow / after-sound of sound.”)
It closes with the titular poem, where “All the birds have wintered out. There are only / slants of light that dance along with this madwoman: / that old bone dance.”
And I’d like to underscore that it’s not “The wind has blown” but “The wind has robbed”, another rich and pitch-perfect choice.
“We say we’ll dance come spring, come thaw, come love.”